Summary:
In this article, scientists see for the first time, a virus infecting an E. coli bacterium. Scientists have finally seen the details of the changes in a virus' structure while it infects the bacterium. Before infecting a cell, the virus extends feeler-like structures from its head. These feelers essentially locate an optimum cell to infect. When the virus arrives at it's chosen host cell, it moves along the membrane searching for a good spot to infect from. When it chooses a good spot, it then injects some of its own proteins to make a bridge or tunnel for the DNA to travel through. After the DNA has been fully transmitted, the protein "bridge" breaks apart and the virus unattatches itself. This greatly changed the ideas of many scientists.
Relevance:
In Biology class, we have studied phages before in the beginning of the previous unit. We studied how they reproduced and how we didn't classify them as living due to their lack of cells. In the first chapter of that unit we read a little bit about how the phages infected bacteria.
Article: Virus Caught in the Act of Infecting a Cell
Published: January 10, 2013
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130110152628.htm
After the virus unattaches itself, is it able to go on and infect more bacterium or does the virus just have a "one-time use"?
ReplyDeleteHow did biologists view the virus infecting the cell? I'm not positive, but don't cells have to be killed in order to view their surface with an electron microscope? Or did they use another kind of microscope?
ReplyDeleteThey say that they used something called cryo-electron tomography, however I'm pretty sure that that is used in liquid nitrogen temperatures so I'm not entirely sure about how they pulled it off. They may have used some sort of other type of electron tomography but I'm not sure.
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